Systems: 1 Way to Mimic the NFL Using Evernote Scannable

26 Oct Systems: 1 Way to Mimic the NFL Using Evernote Scannable

Evernote Scannable – A tool I couldn’t do without

When you’re watching an NFL game, ever notice the quarterback and offensive coordinator on the sidelines talking…and they’re both looking at something? That something is a tablet. Technology makes transferring and reviewing information simpler, faster, and more efficient—and that’s what you want, in both sports and business.

In the NFL, many of the key personnel and coaching staff have gotten rid of messy paper charts and notes in favor of customized Microsoft Surface Tablets. So what devices and services can you use to take a page from their playbook?

Starting with this post, we’re doing a whole series (over time) exploring the systems and applications you can choose from to make your business more efficient—so you can get out there and win it.

Start with Scannable, an app that turns your smartphone into a portable scanner.

Scannable is a great way to take your office paperless (or nearly so). That means no more misplacing documents, no more clutter, and—if you fit your paperless office into an overall sustainability plan—a substantial reduction in resource use.

We don’t work for Scannable, or anything like that, but it’s what we use and we’ve found it helpful. There are other apps out there that let cell phones scan documents, but for our needs, Scannable is the best one—and better than most other scanners on the market, regardless of price point. The app is available for many different devices, but for now, we’ll focus on the iPhone version.

The app uses your phone’s camera to scan the document, then automatically cleans up, sizes, and orients the image. You do have to scan pages one at a time, which could be cumbersome for large documents, and the app does use a lot of the iPhones’ battery, but those are the only flaws we’ve found. The app makes it easy to save the document to the cloud, email it to a colleague, or send it to your Evernote.

Using your iPhone as a scanner means you do not need an extra machine in your office and you don’t need to waste the time of your support people.

Neatly organized electronic storage is certainly an improvement over a messy file cabinet or somebody’s overflowing desk, but electronic storage also means you can email preliminary drafts and handouts back and forth without ever having to print them out. That means less paper and less waste. Everybody wins.